Songs Without Words - Vintage Contemporaries by Ann Packer Paperback

About the Book

From the author of the bestselling "The Dive from Clausen's Pier" comes her long-awaited second novel in which she takes readers on a journey into a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - An "engrossing, forgiving" (People) journey into a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point by one of our most gifted chroniclers of the interior lives of women.

"Packer's voice [has] extraordinary authority. . . . Compassionate, rich in solace." --The New York Times Book Review

Liz and Sarabeth were girlhood neighbors in the suburbs of Northern California, brought as close as sisters by the suicide of Sarabeth's mother. In the decades that followed, their relationship remained a source of continuity and strength. But when Liz's adolescent daughter enters dangerous waters, the women's friendship takes a devastating turn, forcing Liz and Sarabeth to question their most deeply held beliefs about their connection. From the bestselling author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier, Songs Without Words is the gripping story of a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point.

Review Quotes

"Packer's voice [has] extraordinary authority. . . . Compassionate, rich in solace."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Engrossing, forgiving and quietly wise. . . . Packer keeps both the pages and her readers' minds turning until the very end."
--People

"Packer has an unnerving ability to gaze steadily at feelings you can barely acknowledge even to yourself. . . . You are grateful for Packer's insight, refreshed and comforted by the depth of her empathy."
--Newsday

"Songs Without Words is an eloquent, on occasion harrowing account of friendship and its limits, the mind and its fatal fragilities, and the saving graces of human nature. Packer captures mental pathologies exceptionally well and writes beautifully about despair and love and how they travel together throughout a lifetime."
--Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

About the Author

Ann Packer is the author of two best-selling novels, Songs Without Words and The Dive from Clausen's Pier, the latter of which received a Great Lakes Book Award, an American Library Association Award, and the Kate Chopin Literary Award. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Vogue, and Real Simple. Also the author of Mendocino and Other Stories, she lives in northern California with her family.